My Misspent Youth as a D/FW Club Rat
Sep. 30th, 2011 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sailorhathorI've been posting all this on Facebook so I thought it'd be a good idea to post it here too. :)
I thought it would be a good idea to write a note to explain all these videos that are going to be going up over the next few weeks; otherwise, you guys would be left wondering what they're all about. :)
Sometime in early 1988, my dad came home one day and said that a friend of his from work had a daughter named Shelly who was into the same music that my sister and I were, and he had basically arranged a playdate for us to meet her. My sister and I looked at each other and groaned. Most of the music we listened to was metal and thrash metal, and we didn't trust him to know the difference between that and whatever preppy pop music we were sure Shelly would actually be into. But we were wrong. Dad had been paying attention, and Shelly loved a lot of the same stuff we did. Out of this friendship came Zoom.
I turned 15 in 1988. My sister Dee and Shelly were both around 16/17 at this time. Dad had bought a video camera in 1987, one of those huge models big enough to hold a VHS tape, and we delighted in making goofy home movies with it, as you can probably understand with us being teenagers. But we wanted to do more; a video camera in the hands of a bunch of creative, ambitious teenagers who want to make a difference somewhere can be a powerful thing. Somehow, we wanted to use it to express our love for this music that was so overlooked by society.
Around this time, a heavy metal record store called Underground Records opened up in Dallas. It provided us with a place to hang out and shoot the shit, that sort of thing. Underground Records started hosting a bunch of autograph sessions with actual signed, famous bands, something we definitely wanted to be a part of, so my sister mentioned to the owner, Manuel, that we had a video camera and would be happy to film the autograph sessions for the store. Manuel jumped at the chance to have us do this, as it would be a way to catalog all these big metal bands he'd managed to score for an in-store. I'm sure you can understand how exciting it would be for teenage girls to have the chance to film famous metal bands, even if we didn't appreciate the music of every one of them. Some of the videos will be of these autograph sessions.
A couple of things happened around the summer of 1988. First, Shelly also got a video camera. Second, Shelly's father said he knew a woman who worked for Dallas Cable Access named Kathy Blaylock. I really don't remember how he knew her, just that he did. He knew that we wanted to somehow become part of the local metal music scene and thought this could be a good way to do it. We would film the bands and make videos and updates about them to be played on a cable access TV show called "Dallas Music Videos." Well, you can imagine how exciting that sounded to a bunch of kids - film cool bands, make our own videos, and get them shown on television! Sure, it was only cable access, but it would still be seen by lots of people across the city of Dallas, TX. Of course we said yes!
I'm sure our parents saw this as a way to keep us busy and out of trouble, and it was. It gave us a great creative outlet. But we had to come up with a name to use that would represent all three of us on the show. We tossed around a few names until my sister came across a pin in Mervyns that said ZOOM. She and Shelly were always abusing the zoom on their cameras, so the name stuck. We became Zoom. They did the camerawork and I handled most of the interviews. (On occassion, Shelly or Dee would do an interview either because they just felt like it or in the case of Shelly, because she really dug the message the band was trying to put out.)
We made these videos and documentaries from the summer of 1988 through the summer of 1989. Through them we made a lot of great friends and met a ton of fun rocker dudes. :) Whoever was friendly and most open to being filmed got taped the most. Some were great big hams. :D It was a lot of fun.
I think the greatest thing we made was the Pagan Festival Documentary. Underground Records organized a full day of local metal music at Northlake Park in Dallas County which took place on July 23, 1988. We filmed and interviewed every band that played that day, meaning that we were out there from morning til night, chasing down bands all day to find someone who would talk to us. A few of the bands that played were from California and were touring the US together, but most of the bands were local. We tried to inject some humor into it as well as simply showcasing the bands; you may recognize a sort of narrative with our various segments, from "How are people keeping cool?" to "The arrival of the skate ramp." For the record, the fest had absolutely nothing to do with paganism/the religion; it was just a name.
Another thing that we did that I feel is now very important is simply film in all these famous metal clubs, most of which no longer exist. The Honest Place, Joe's Garage, The Tombstone Factory, The Silver Dollar, and the famous Arcadia Theater, which burned down a few years ago. You can't recreate Dallas music history like that.
Something I feel I should explain is the constant references to nazi skinheads. You'll hear it all through the videos we made. Nazi skinheads were a big problem on the Dallas metal scene back then. They had made it their mission to destroy the scene because it was so varied racially, and they didn't want to allow the "race mixing" to continue. Nazi skinheads would show up at shows and purposefully start fights in an effort to draw the attention of the police, hoping the problems would get the club shut down. The owner of the Honest Place actually shot one of them after a show one night; the girl survived, but the subsequent legal problems eventually caused the club to be closed. Shelly herself almost got beat up by female skinheads after a Circle Jerks show at the Arcadia because she had been running around in the mosh pit parodying their cries of, "White power!" with "White flowers!"
Dee and Shelly both graduated in 1989 and went off to college in the fall. That pretty much ended our Zoom activities. Still, we made our mark. *Rock fist* :D
Anyway, I'll add more as each video is uploaded. I don't have the equipment to transfer VHS to the computer, but Robert Knott does, so that's why he's doing the technical aspect of this. (Robert was the drummer of Scum of the Earth.) Most of the music is thrash metal; I understand if that's not your thing, but if you do watch these videos, know that you are bearing witness to a big part of my teenagerhood. :) It was a great experience for me and a ton of fun! I'm happy to know that others want to see this stuff after all these years.
This is the first time I've ever embedded Youtube videos in a post, so here's hoping I do it right. :D
The Pagan Festival! This was nominated for a local cable access award, but we lost to a knitting show, lol. Now that all these years have gone by, I can see a problem here and there (there are places where the editing could have been a little less tight, and we should have identified Manuel and James from Underground Records at the beginning), but it's not that bad for a documentary made by a bunch of kids. ^_^ We should have just eliminated the second question and combined it with the third one; asking, "Will you still support local underground bands blah blah blah" wasn't necessary; who's going to say no? Still, this is some of the only footage of these bands that still exists period.
Favorite parts:
During the Scum of the Earth interview, Robert K says he's the drummer and Robert H asks, "Are you any good?" and Robert K responds, "I suck."
During Bliss, is he really singing, "They got the cruising, I got the bruising"? Because that's what it sounds like. We (the ZOOM girls) were extremely amused with that and would imitate it a lot, in Bliss singer voice.
You see Jerry Warden in this several times. He's the guy with the long dark hair who tries to help with the skate ramp and says, "They couldn't do this without me." He was pretty well known in the metal scene because he owned or worked at more than one club and wrote a zine.
We covered all cuss words with Talon insert music. I hope it doesn't scare you when thrash metal suddenly comes out of someone's mouth. :D (Although we missed a couple f-bombs in the background, oops.)
Deadly Force is playing over the mosh pit footage. He's actually singing, "The cost of dying," but it kind of sounds like, "Fuck! I'm dying!" XD Another source of great amusement for us.
Insecticide are so sweet! Love those guys.
It was really hot that day, being Texas in July, so you'll see a lot of guys walking around without their shirts on.
It seems like a lot of the music clips we chose concentrated more on guitar solos and not on the singers. That's not something I noticed until now. Lots of singers running around looking like backup dancers.
People would not stop fucking with us during the Tyrranicide interview. One guy even waves his pot in the camera. -_-;; heh, oh well
Steve Murphy from Process Revealed gave us a full interview, but some of it got cut off by accident. That's why his interview just kind of cuts off.
There are a lot of -cide bands in this festival. XD
Morbid Scream were really popular, and for good reason. Trent White is adorable. :D
Talon were also very popular; they really should have had a record contract and become big stars. We should have used a different song, though. The guitartist sings this one for some reason, which doesn't give Turner much to do but dance around in the background. I voted that we use their most iconic song, "Summer of Hate," which was about Charles Manson, but somehow I got outvoted.
I mention the Texas Jam at the end. The Texas Jam! I miss that concert. I guess it wasn't pulling in enough money anymore and they stopped doing it. :( Of course, there was no second Pagan Fest, which was really a shame too.
Dead Horse, a band from Houston, Tx. These guys WOULD NOT do a serious interview, but it's okay because it turned out hilarious.
Insecticide Update! Again, very sweet guys, always treated us great.
Insecticide do a promo for Dallas Music Videos.
Outtakes from the promo. Sherman and Brian get silly.
Tyrranicide Update. These guys had a lot of good messages in their music; Shelly loved bands like that, so she insisted on doing the interview. Probably one of the deepest interviews we ever did, ha. Just to clarify, the drummer had something wrong with his legs and used crutches.
Scam Update. They started out as Uncle Scam but eventually changed it to Scam because there were too many other Uncle bands out there. George Reagan is adorable. They were a really funny band with outrageous lyrics. My favorite part is when I ask why they changed their style of music between demos and one guy yells, "Talent!" :D
Forced Entry Update. We didn't cover these guys much at all; this is pretty much it. They did covers as well as originals, which is why you'll hear Metallica in this.
Process Revealed at the Silver Dollar. This was actually 1988. Lots of problems here! First we had audio probs and had to break out the microphone, which was the first one we had. The cord was way too short, as you'll see by the number of times it appears in front of the camera. Then the promo got cut off by accident. Then Steve has problems with the microphone stand; the mic won't stay still, which results in him having to chase it around the mic stand. XD It's pretty funny. Luckily, Thor is there to fix it for him. ;D Shelly does the interview on this one too.
Faster Pussycat autograph session at Underground Records, 4/16/88. I have SO MUCH to say about this one. They were the only band who wouldn't interact with the camera. In fact, they acted like a bunch of primadonna "rock star" assholes, for the most part. None of us were fans of the band; I liked a couple of their songs, but I think Shelly's friend Erin was the only one who cared about meeting them. We filmed this for Manuel. Now, I can understand the band acting like they don't want to be filmed if they were out to dinner with their family or something, but it's a freaking autograph session! People are going to be taking your fucking picture! Still, a couple of the members acted like we were greatly inconveniencing them by simply wanting them to say hello to the camera even one time. The thing is, if you don't want to interact with the camera, just ignore it like Taime did. Greg Steele even shoves the camera at one point! Unbelievable. For all they knew, we were huge FP fans and they just crushed us.
But, we weren't fans, and you can tell by smartass comments we make on the video (out of earshot of the band, so you can't blame that for how they act). To any fans who watch it who are offended by that, I'm sorry, but you have to understand where we were coming from after the atmosphere that the band created.
My favorite part of this is when my sister is filming, she is talking to Shelly, and she comments that Brent Muscat has lovely hair and that "I wish my hair was that long." :D Hahaha, I just found that amusing.
Crumbsuckers autograph session, July '88. We weren't big fans of these guys but they were really nice.
M.O.D. autograph session. This one was from 1988; they had another one in 1989. They were okay, though Billy Milano is kind of a dick in general. My favorite part is that my sister kept filming just to piss off Billy Milano, hehhehheh. (And also because Manuel wanted her to get as much footage as possible.) After about an hour, Milano goes, "Can you tell her to stop filming?" to Manuel and Manuel's like, ummmm, no, and my sister says, "He's not going to tell me to stop, he's getting a copy of this." HAHAHA. It's all done very jokingly; I don't think Milano was actually that annoyed. Eventually he just starts ignoring the camera. I think he didn't like us catching him trying to hook up with his groupie. XD Which, BTW, ew, a groupie for Billy Milano? That's scraping the bottom of the metal barrel.
More videos to come. :)
I thought it would be a good idea to write a note to explain all these videos that are going to be going up over the next few weeks; otherwise, you guys would be left wondering what they're all about. :)
Sometime in early 1988, my dad came home one day and said that a friend of his from work had a daughter named Shelly who was into the same music that my sister and I were, and he had basically arranged a playdate for us to meet her. My sister and I looked at each other and groaned. Most of the music we listened to was metal and thrash metal, and we didn't trust him to know the difference between that and whatever preppy pop music we were sure Shelly would actually be into. But we were wrong. Dad had been paying attention, and Shelly loved a lot of the same stuff we did. Out of this friendship came Zoom.
I turned 15 in 1988. My sister Dee and Shelly were both around 16/17 at this time. Dad had bought a video camera in 1987, one of those huge models big enough to hold a VHS tape, and we delighted in making goofy home movies with it, as you can probably understand with us being teenagers. But we wanted to do more; a video camera in the hands of a bunch of creative, ambitious teenagers who want to make a difference somewhere can be a powerful thing. Somehow, we wanted to use it to express our love for this music that was so overlooked by society.
Around this time, a heavy metal record store called Underground Records opened up in Dallas. It provided us with a place to hang out and shoot the shit, that sort of thing. Underground Records started hosting a bunch of autograph sessions with actual signed, famous bands, something we definitely wanted to be a part of, so my sister mentioned to the owner, Manuel, that we had a video camera and would be happy to film the autograph sessions for the store. Manuel jumped at the chance to have us do this, as it would be a way to catalog all these big metal bands he'd managed to score for an in-store. I'm sure you can understand how exciting it would be for teenage girls to have the chance to film famous metal bands, even if we didn't appreciate the music of every one of them. Some of the videos will be of these autograph sessions.
A couple of things happened around the summer of 1988. First, Shelly also got a video camera. Second, Shelly's father said he knew a woman who worked for Dallas Cable Access named Kathy Blaylock. I really don't remember how he knew her, just that he did. He knew that we wanted to somehow become part of the local metal music scene and thought this could be a good way to do it. We would film the bands and make videos and updates about them to be played on a cable access TV show called "Dallas Music Videos." Well, you can imagine how exciting that sounded to a bunch of kids - film cool bands, make our own videos, and get them shown on television! Sure, it was only cable access, but it would still be seen by lots of people across the city of Dallas, TX. Of course we said yes!
I'm sure our parents saw this as a way to keep us busy and out of trouble, and it was. It gave us a great creative outlet. But we had to come up with a name to use that would represent all three of us on the show. We tossed around a few names until my sister came across a pin in Mervyns that said ZOOM. She and Shelly were always abusing the zoom on their cameras, so the name stuck. We became Zoom. They did the camerawork and I handled most of the interviews. (On occassion, Shelly or Dee would do an interview either because they just felt like it or in the case of Shelly, because she really dug the message the band was trying to put out.)
We made these videos and documentaries from the summer of 1988 through the summer of 1989. Through them we made a lot of great friends and met a ton of fun rocker dudes. :) Whoever was friendly and most open to being filmed got taped the most. Some were great big hams. :D It was a lot of fun.
I think the greatest thing we made was the Pagan Festival Documentary. Underground Records organized a full day of local metal music at Northlake Park in Dallas County which took place on July 23, 1988. We filmed and interviewed every band that played that day, meaning that we were out there from morning til night, chasing down bands all day to find someone who would talk to us. A few of the bands that played were from California and were touring the US together, but most of the bands were local. We tried to inject some humor into it as well as simply showcasing the bands; you may recognize a sort of narrative with our various segments, from "How are people keeping cool?" to "The arrival of the skate ramp." For the record, the fest had absolutely nothing to do with paganism/the religion; it was just a name.
Another thing that we did that I feel is now very important is simply film in all these famous metal clubs, most of which no longer exist. The Honest Place, Joe's Garage, The Tombstone Factory, The Silver Dollar, and the famous Arcadia Theater, which burned down a few years ago. You can't recreate Dallas music history like that.
Something I feel I should explain is the constant references to nazi skinheads. You'll hear it all through the videos we made. Nazi skinheads were a big problem on the Dallas metal scene back then. They had made it their mission to destroy the scene because it was so varied racially, and they didn't want to allow the "race mixing" to continue. Nazi skinheads would show up at shows and purposefully start fights in an effort to draw the attention of the police, hoping the problems would get the club shut down. The owner of the Honest Place actually shot one of them after a show one night; the girl survived, but the subsequent legal problems eventually caused the club to be closed. Shelly herself almost got beat up by female skinheads after a Circle Jerks show at the Arcadia because she had been running around in the mosh pit parodying their cries of, "White power!" with "White flowers!"
Dee and Shelly both graduated in 1989 and went off to college in the fall. That pretty much ended our Zoom activities. Still, we made our mark. *Rock fist* :D
Anyway, I'll add more as each video is uploaded. I don't have the equipment to transfer VHS to the computer, but Robert Knott does, so that's why he's doing the technical aspect of this. (Robert was the drummer of Scum of the Earth.) Most of the music is thrash metal; I understand if that's not your thing, but if you do watch these videos, know that you are bearing witness to a big part of my teenagerhood. :) It was a great experience for me and a ton of fun! I'm happy to know that others want to see this stuff after all these years.
This is the first time I've ever embedded Youtube videos in a post, so here's hoping I do it right. :D
The Pagan Festival! This was nominated for a local cable access award, but we lost to a knitting show, lol. Now that all these years have gone by, I can see a problem here and there (there are places where the editing could have been a little less tight, and we should have identified Manuel and James from Underground Records at the beginning), but it's not that bad for a documentary made by a bunch of kids. ^_^ We should have just eliminated the second question and combined it with the third one; asking, "Will you still support local underground bands blah blah blah" wasn't necessary; who's going to say no? Still, this is some of the only footage of these bands that still exists period.
Favorite parts:
During the Scum of the Earth interview, Robert K says he's the drummer and Robert H asks, "Are you any good?" and Robert K responds, "I suck."
During Bliss, is he really singing, "They got the cruising, I got the bruising"? Because that's what it sounds like. We (the ZOOM girls) were extremely amused with that and would imitate it a lot, in Bliss singer voice.
You see Jerry Warden in this several times. He's the guy with the long dark hair who tries to help with the skate ramp and says, "They couldn't do this without me." He was pretty well known in the metal scene because he owned or worked at more than one club and wrote a zine.
We covered all cuss words with Talon insert music. I hope it doesn't scare you when thrash metal suddenly comes out of someone's mouth. :D (Although we missed a couple f-bombs in the background, oops.)
Deadly Force is playing over the mosh pit footage. He's actually singing, "The cost of dying," but it kind of sounds like, "Fuck! I'm dying!" XD Another source of great amusement for us.
Insecticide are so sweet! Love those guys.
It was really hot that day, being Texas in July, so you'll see a lot of guys walking around without their shirts on.
It seems like a lot of the music clips we chose concentrated more on guitar solos and not on the singers. That's not something I noticed until now. Lots of singers running around looking like backup dancers.
People would not stop fucking with us during the Tyrranicide interview. One guy even waves his pot in the camera. -_-;; heh, oh well
Steve Murphy from Process Revealed gave us a full interview, but some of it got cut off by accident. That's why his interview just kind of cuts off.
There are a lot of -cide bands in this festival. XD
Morbid Scream were really popular, and for good reason. Trent White is adorable. :D
Talon were also very popular; they really should have had a record contract and become big stars. We should have used a different song, though. The guitartist sings this one for some reason, which doesn't give Turner much to do but dance around in the background. I voted that we use their most iconic song, "Summer of Hate," which was about Charles Manson, but somehow I got outvoted.
I mention the Texas Jam at the end. The Texas Jam! I miss that concert. I guess it wasn't pulling in enough money anymore and they stopped doing it. :( Of course, there was no second Pagan Fest, which was really a shame too.
Dead Horse, a band from Houston, Tx. These guys WOULD NOT do a serious interview, but it's okay because it turned out hilarious.
Insecticide Update! Again, very sweet guys, always treated us great.
Insecticide do a promo for Dallas Music Videos.
Outtakes from the promo. Sherman and Brian get silly.
Tyrranicide Update. These guys had a lot of good messages in their music; Shelly loved bands like that, so she insisted on doing the interview. Probably one of the deepest interviews we ever did, ha. Just to clarify, the drummer had something wrong with his legs and used crutches.
Scam Update. They started out as Uncle Scam but eventually changed it to Scam because there were too many other Uncle bands out there. George Reagan is adorable. They were a really funny band with outrageous lyrics. My favorite part is when I ask why they changed their style of music between demos and one guy yells, "Talent!" :D
Forced Entry Update. We didn't cover these guys much at all; this is pretty much it. They did covers as well as originals, which is why you'll hear Metallica in this.
Process Revealed at the Silver Dollar. This was actually 1988. Lots of problems here! First we had audio probs and had to break out the microphone, which was the first one we had. The cord was way too short, as you'll see by the number of times it appears in front of the camera. Then the promo got cut off by accident. Then Steve has problems with the microphone stand; the mic won't stay still, which results in him having to chase it around the mic stand. XD It's pretty funny. Luckily, Thor is there to fix it for him. ;D Shelly does the interview on this one too.
Faster Pussycat autograph session at Underground Records, 4/16/88. I have SO MUCH to say about this one. They were the only band who wouldn't interact with the camera. In fact, they acted like a bunch of primadonna "rock star" assholes, for the most part. None of us were fans of the band; I liked a couple of their songs, but I think Shelly's friend Erin was the only one who cared about meeting them. We filmed this for Manuel. Now, I can understand the band acting like they don't want to be filmed if they were out to dinner with their family or something, but it's a freaking autograph session! People are going to be taking your fucking picture! Still, a couple of the members acted like we were greatly inconveniencing them by simply wanting them to say hello to the camera even one time. The thing is, if you don't want to interact with the camera, just ignore it like Taime did. Greg Steele even shoves the camera at one point! Unbelievable. For all they knew, we were huge FP fans and they just crushed us.
But, we weren't fans, and you can tell by smartass comments we make on the video (out of earshot of the band, so you can't blame that for how they act). To any fans who watch it who are offended by that, I'm sorry, but you have to understand where we were coming from after the atmosphere that the band created.
My favorite part of this is when my sister is filming, she is talking to Shelly, and she comments that Brent Muscat has lovely hair and that "I wish my hair was that long." :D Hahaha, I just found that amusing.
Crumbsuckers autograph session, July '88. We weren't big fans of these guys but they were really nice.
M.O.D. autograph session. This one was from 1988; they had another one in 1989. They were okay, though Billy Milano is kind of a dick in general. My favorite part is that my sister kept filming just to piss off Billy Milano, hehhehheh. (And also because Manuel wanted her to get as much footage as possible.) After about an hour, Milano goes, "Can you tell her to stop filming?" to Manuel and Manuel's like, ummmm, no, and my sister says, "He's not going to tell me to stop, he's getting a copy of this." HAHAHA. It's all done very jokingly; I don't think Milano was actually that annoyed. Eventually he just starts ignoring the camera. I think he didn't like us catching him trying to hook up with his groupie. XD Which, BTW, ew, a groupie for Billy Milano? That's scraping the bottom of the metal barrel.
More videos to come. :)
